Music publishing was conceived in the 1880s as a way of protecting the intellectual property of a composition when replicating sheet music became popular. Over the years, music publishing has become a multimillion-pound global business administering the copyrights of songs by recording artists.
There are five main areas of activity in Music Publishing:
Artists and Repertoire (A&R) - Creative
A&R are the frontline team who engage with artists and songwriters and their management teams.
A&R can be divided into three areas:-
Scouting: Discovering and identifying new artists and songwriters to work with. Developing and nurturing relationships with agents, managers, other scouts and promoters. This job requires a significant amount of attending gigs, events and showcase festivals. Increasingly, scouting is happening online with data providing a level of pinpointing. Scouts will be expected to have an up to date knowledge of the A&R ‘buzz’ artists, be aware of new additions to radio and streaming playlists and working knowledge of what other publishers, labels, managers and agents are signing. This information is relayed back to the A&R in weekly A&R meetings.
A&R Management: A&R managers are the people who have the budget to sign artists to the publishing company's roster. The A&R manager will convince the artist that their offer and company are the best place to sign their publishing rights to. A&R will provide creative feedback and suggestions on everything to do with the music including track listing, single selection, mixes, remixes, mastering, co-writing and production. The A&R will inform the rest of the team about the creative progress of the artist or songwriter and will have input into any contractual changes and options for the next album or batch of songs.
Song Plugging: Song pluggers work with the non-performing songwriters and arrange writing sessions for their writers with artists, other writers and producers. They help navigate and engineer getting the songs they publish ‘cut’ by an artist.
Networking, relationship management and an understanding of the songwriting and the recording process are key areas of the job. Having a working knowledge of the music marketplace is also vital.
Business Affairs - Legal
Each publishing deal is negotiated by the publishing company’s lawyer. The artist or songwriter will have a legal representative to negotiate on their behalf. There are several recognised London based music law firms such as Clintons, Russells, Sound Advice and Sheridans that will all offer specialist intellectual property advice on behalf of the artist.
The publishing company's business affairs department will work with the administration teams to distribute the terms of the negotiated agreements so that royalties can be calculated. As the deal progresses, the options for new songs will be monitored by the lawyer in an option diary who will liaise with the A&R department when necessary.
The main music publishing deal terms are:
- Territory (usually the World but can be for one or several countries)
- Advances (the amount of money that is advanced upfront against future royalty income)
- Term (the duration of the agreement)
- Royalties (the rate for calculating royalties for income derived from performance, mechanical, sync, sheet music and any other income)
- Retention or Rights period ( the amount of time after the term expires that the publisher has the rights to collect income)
- Minimum Commitment ( the amount of songs and writers share that the writer has to deliver)
Copyright - Administration
The copyright department will work with the performing rights organisations (PRO’s) and the mechanical copyright collection agencies to register the songs. PRO’s are different in every country with slightly different rules and rates; they collect money from broadcasters, concerts, shops and anywhere where there is a performance of a song. In the UK we have the Performing Rights Society (PRS). Others include ASCAP & BMI in USA, GEMA in Germany and Sacem in France. In the UK the mechanical income (reproduction of the song such as a CD) is collected by the MCPS which is now part of the PRS.
The copyright department registers the songs and the relevant shares they publish on behalf of the songwriter throughout the world with each of the PRO’s.
Royalties - Administration
The royalty department collates all of the data and income from the PRO’s, mechanical societies, synchronisation, sheet music and any other income. They usually account twice yearly to the artists and songwriters on the commercial terms negotiated in each individual artist agreement. This is called a royalty statement.
Synchronisation - Creative
The sync department works across TV, films, advertising, games and online to license or exploit the publishing company’s repertoire of music. The sync team will have working relationships with the music supervisors hired to license music into the media. Sometimes this can be quite specific and the sync teams will be working to a brief given by the music supervisors and will have to suggest the best matches from the publishing catalogue. Other times, syncs can be quite by chance or down to the relationships between the players in the sync market.
Major vs Independent
The majors (Warner Chappell, Sony/ATV, Universal) are structured with these clearly delineated roles as outlined above. At an indie publisher (Domino, Rough Trade, PIAS) there may be a blurring of roles for the team. In terms of service there is the right fit for the artist or songwriter out there - there are so many choices available for songwriters so it is definitely worth finding the right company. Although all publishers essentially do the same job, they can offer vastly different deal structures, have different international setups and have different company structures.
New tech-orientated publishers
Kobalt was founded in 2000 and has led the way for a new approach to publishing utilising technology and data. Other new publishers of note are Songtrust and Sentric. All have made collecting income and delivering it to writers much more streamlined with bespoke software.
Conclusion
The role of the music publisher, much like the rest of the music business, has undergone rapid change in recent years with the advancements in technology. However, the main principle has stayed the same: -
- The A&R department will help nurture the artists and writers and find them opportunities whilst supporting the process financially with advances
- The admin team will collect and deliver the writer’s royalties
- The sync team will try to find placements for the writers music in the media
A good relationship with a publisher can be the backbone of royalty income over an artist's or writer’s career.
Web links for further reading
Music Publishers Association https://mpaonline.org.uk
PRS https://www.prsformusic.com
Guild of Music Supervisors https://www.guildofmusicsupervisors.co.uk
ASCAP https://www.ascap.com
About the author:
Steve Farris has been a publishing A&R for much of his career working at companies including EMI, Sony/ATV, Polar Patrol and 13 Artists Publishing. Steve has signed publishing deals with artists including Snow Patrol, Belle and Sebastian, Here We Go Magic, Nadine Shah and the Psychedelic Porn Crumpets amongst others.
Steve is now working as a music consultant.
